


Petals in His Throat

by GrimHeaperr



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bad end, Blood, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, assumed Shatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 15:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimHeaperr/pseuds/GrimHeaperr
Summary: Keith develops Hanahaki Disease and the object of his affections already loves someone else, or so he thinks.





	Petals in His Throat

**Author's Note:**

> This got a handful of notes on tumblr, so I decided to post it here.

> _The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals._

Keith is mortified to see the red petals splattered like blood in his bathroom sink. The rose petals are wet from his mouth, a few bunched together and sticking to the sink. Others are mostly dry, lying on the bottom of the sink. Keith turns the faucet on, chest heaving as he splashes the petals into the drain. He coughs up a few more into the running water, watching them drown and circle before they slip out of sight. Rosy pink stains litter the sink bowl. Keith scrubs at the stains with his thumb, which was mostly effective aside from a few smears that won't go away.

He turns the faucet off, his apartment returning to its nightly silence.

Keith doesn't sleep well that night, or the nights after that.

**/x\**

Keith hides his bags underneath a pair of red sunglasses and hides the fact he didn't comb his hair by tying it into a ponytail. He masked his sweat with a few sprays of strong cologne. He takes the early bus to the university, the only other person on it being an older woman who sips on her coffee while reading on her phone. Halfway through the trip, Keith is coughing again, the petals tickling up his throat until he hacks them up into his hand.

He hears the women's pity in the form of a gasp and, "You poor thing," before she gives him unsolicited advice that the best way to deal with it is to tell the truth.

Keith doesn't want to admit his feelings. He's afraid of the likely chance that the person of his affections won't return them. He knows Shiro likes his lab partner, Matt Holt; the two have been inseparable since their freshman year, from what Keith could gather. He knows all about them and their stories, their long nights. Keith had listened to Shiro tell him about the time he and Matt broke into the lab to test out a theory, only to be caught and banned from setting foot in the science building for an entire semester. He remembers Shiro's laugh, the memory making him blush. Keith coughs again, his heart fluttering as petals decorate his lap.

Keith decides to deal with this how he deals with everything: alone.

**/x\**

It's been weeks, and the petals are slowly turning into flowers.

Keith first notices them during lunch. He thought he was choking on his food. Lance handed him water to drink it down, but Keith ends up throwing up the water and half-grown flowers onto the table. Keith is horrified at the sight: leaves stick to the table along with red and pink rose petals, a few roses are almost fully formed and he notices a rose bud in the red-pink mess. People are walking by and gawk at the sight, and Keith is nearly as red as the flowers.

Lance helps Keith hurriedly clean up the mess before Shiro can join them.

Shiro notices the sweat on Keith's forehead and the absence of his food. "Are you alright?" he asks, concern threaded into the question.

Keith clears his throat. "Yeah, just sick," he replies. Sick of these damn flowers. Sick of coughing every night. Sick of loving someone who doesn't love him. Lance stops Shiro from saying anything else, effectively diverting his attention by asking about his finals.

Keith could feel the petals choke and scratch up his throat, but he stays silent, listening to Shiro's voice and focuses on his breathing. It's not long before Keith has to excuse himself.

Keith ducks into the nearest building and throws up in a toilet, knees on the floor as saliva drips from his mouth. His chest is heaving and there's blood mixed in with the petals that turn the water a faint pink. He hears the bathroom door open.

"Keith?"

He winces and clutches the blow before coughing again, watching with tears pricking his eyes as petals splatter into the bowl. A whole rose floats at the top.

"Keith, are you okay? What's wrong?" Shiro asks, and Keith wants to cry.

What's wrong? Keith loves Shiro, the kindest, sweetest man Keith has ever met. He loves how Shiro talks to him, like they're equals, unlike the other people in his field and major. Shiro values his input and remembers the things Keith says. He pays attention to minuscule details. He remembered his birthday; that he liked strawberry-flavored cake instead of vanilla or chocolate. He remembered and took Keith to the movie he had been dying to see. They spend most of their week together working in the lab. When they have time, Keith drives them out into the country with a telescope to stargaze, drinking and enjoying the vastness of space through conversations about their dreams. Shiro let Keith sleep on his shoulder when they took the bus into the city, held his hand in the busy shopping center so they didn't drift apart. Keith loved his gray eyes, his scar, his prosthetic. Everything about him. He loved Shiro for being himself around him, letting Keith know that even the top student in the university had his faults and insecurities. Keith is in love with Shiro.

The tragedy is that Shiro is in love with someone else.

Keith coughs up more flower petals before answering. "I'm fine," he lies, his voice hoarse and burning from throwing up. Keith swallowed the blood that coated his tongue as he flushed the toilet.

"Do you need me to drive you home?" Keith squeezes his eyes shut as he feels thorns prick at his throat. He's afraid. He's so afraid.

Keith uses the toilet to push himself up. There's wet petals and leaves sticking to his shirt. He takes them off before throwing them away. He leaves the stall and Shiro stands before him, tall, worried. Keith wants to collapse into his arms, tired, and admit his feelings. He wants to stop throwing up. He wants the thorns to go away. He doesn't want to die like this. Instead, he only nods, pressing the heel of his palm into his right hand and rubbing.

"Keith," Shiro starts but doesn't finish as Keith walks past him. Shiro takes the hint and they walk across campus, a few people staring as Keith coughs petals and shoves them into his pockets. He ignores the wetness slowly seeping onto his leg as Shiro drives him home in silence.

They pull up to Keith's apartment.

"Thanks for driving me home," Keith says, face turned away as he pulls on the handle. Shiro places his hand on Keith's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

"Keith, if there's anything you want to talk about, I'm here for you," he says, and Keith feels guilty. Guilty that he's been avoiding his best friend for weeks now, only bothering to continuously text him because texting isn't face-to-face. Keith can't handle face-to-face. Right now, he wants to drive himself so far from Shiro. He wants to break the years of trust they built and shatter it. He never wants to see Shiro again, but the thought of that makes him anxious to the point of dry-heaving. Shiro had always been there for him, through his ups and downs, and this is how he would repay Shiro? By destroying their friendship just because Shiro doesn't love him back? "You know you could come to me for help," he says softly. Keith closes his eyes and furrows his brows. Shiro can't help him. You can't force someone to love you. He's not going to shove his feelings onto Shiro.

"Thanks," is the only thing he says as he leaves.

Keith walks the steps with his head down and when he makes it to his apartment door, he watches Shiro pull away, waving back to the man. Keith keys into his apartment and collapses on the couch. He lays on his stomach, and he lets himself heave pathetically. He could taste the blood as he spits the petals onto the floor. Keith forces himself to throw up the fully-formed roses, a thorny stem cutting his lips. He lies on the couch for hours, ignoring the ringing of his phone in his pocket as he cries alone in his apartment.

He could feel his breaths getting labored and shorter than normal, but he can't bring himself to reach for his phone. He thought he could hear someone banging on his door, but he told himself it was his neighbor's door. Keith let his eyes flutter shut, tired. He coughed out one more rose petal covered in blood before he stopped breathing.

**/x\**

When he wakes, Keith is greeted by the sound of a slow, steady beep. His head feels groggy and his body is stiff. His head hurts as he turns it to the side. There's a machine that leads to a tube, and Keith notices he's wearing a respirator. A bucket sits on his bedside table, and he's surprised to see Shiro on his phone, reading with an intense look on his face.

"Shiro?" Keith says, but there's no sound. Keith painfully swallows what little saliva is in his throat before he says Shiro's name again. "Shiro?" he croaks out, and Shiro startles, nearly dropping his phone.

"Keith?" Shiro's eyes are red and his cheeks are puffy. Shiro scrambles toward him, kneeling down in front of the hospital bed. Shiro takes Keith's hand, and Keith's too out of it to be shocked.

"Thank god," Shiro's lips are on Keith's hand, but his heart doesn't flutter, he doesn't cough. Shiro looks up at him, eyes glassy. Keith wants to caress his face, but he can't find it in himself to do it. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" he whispered, and Keith was hit with guilt. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Keith could feel his eyes burn. He focused on the beeping of his heart monitor, slowly calming himself down to reply. Shiro knows now. He knows Keith is in love with him. Was in love with him? Keith didn't know what happened, or why he isn't coughing. Why he doesn't feel anything when Shiro is holding his hand.

"I was afraid," he finally says, admitting his own feelings. "I was afraid that you didn't love me."

Shiro shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he placed his forehead on their intertwined hands. "How could you think that."

Matt.

"You were always with someone else," Keith remembers seeing the smiles, hearing the laughs Shiro would produce around Matt. He remembers wishing that was him making Shiro laugh like that, but Keith wasn't that person. He wasn't Matt. He could never be half the man Matt was. He wasn't worth Shiro's affections, and he was okay with that. "Happier with someone else," he finishes.

"There is no one else," Shiro says, a tear rolling down his cheek, Keith swallows his guilt. "It was always you, Keith," he whispers, pained, "You and only you."

Keith's heart doesn't skip a beat, nor does it flutter. His stomach doesn't churn and a blush doesn't dust his cheeks. Keith doesn't feel anything toward the man before him, holding onto his hand like it'll be his last time. Keith wants Shiro to hold him like that, but he doesn't have the desire, the longing want. It's just a thought, one that fizzles out when he reasons there's no need for Shiro to hold him like that. He's angry. There's no reason for Shiro to be here.

"Don't force yourself," he breathes, "You don't have to love me back Shiro. I think, I," Keith stutters and blinks. He looks up at the ceiling and sighs. He knows why he doesn't feel anything. The man he's been in love with for months no longer has a candle in his name. The roses and their thorns were taken out of Keith, carefully plucked from his throat and his stomach so the man could breathe, could live. They lay in a biomedical bin, waiting to be disposed of. Tossed or burned, and Keith hopes it's the later. "The feelings are gone."

Shiro chokes on his sob, letting go of Keith's hand. Keith hears him cough and his heart misses a beat.

Without a word, Shiro leaves.

Keith feels the unmistakable texture of a wet flower petal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can like/reblog this story [here](http://grimkohai.tumblr.com/post/164662847584/petals-in-his-throat).
> 
> [tumblr](http://grimkohai.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/grimkohai)


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